Ken Lammers demonstrates once again why I’m glad I’m a computer programmer, not a defense lawyer. I spent much of yesterday and today writing code. It was tricky, it used unfamiliar technology, and it involved a lot of thrashing around in frustration. But two days later I’m done and it works. Mission accomplished.

Lammers, meanwhile, was trying to prevent the Commonwealth of Virginia from jailing a guy for being a felon in possession of a gun. The guy bought his gun through legal channels at a gun shop and—I believe this part is uncontested—passed the police background check. Apparently, after telling him he could have a gun, the police turned around and tried to throw him in jail for the mandatory minimum of five years.

And they succeeded. Lammers lost the case.

I haven’t heard, and may never hear, why the police didn’t just quietly tell the guy what happened and confiscate the gun. Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, the guy had it coming. Maybe he was a really bad dude who got away with a lot of other stuff, so the prosecutor’s office felt the need to nail him for something and this came up. It’s the only motivation I can think of for why the prosecutor’s office would press a case like this, other than simple cruelty.